My Brother's Keeper
by Fauxhawk
Summary: Kane and Taker reveal some family secrets to each other in their down time. Contains adult language and lots of violence.
1. Chapter 1

_Yeah so I started writing this little piece about Kane, and then of course Taker came along and hijacked it. __Such an attention whore, he is. XD_  
_Not really sure where this one is going (if anywhere), but I thought I'd post it anyways. I might just leave it as a one-off_.

_Rated M for language and violence._

* * *

With the faintest of smiles on his lips, Kane stood there in the basement, mesmerized by the fire. He watched intently as the flames flickered and swayed, putting on a seductive show for his own personal viewing. His breathing grew more ragged as the initially small flame grew larger and larger. The front of his pants grew tight as the delicate fingers of the flames caressed the walls and embraced the surrounding objects. He longed to feel those same caresses on his skin but knew that was not a possibility. Fire was a fickle creature, only allowing him to look but not touch, which made her all the more alluring to him. So he was content to watch, to be a voyeur as it were.

Suddenly, a piercing noise shattered the moment for him. His jaw clenched in anger and his eyes slowly turned upwards to glare at the smoke detector above his head as it mocked him with its incessant shrieking and blinking red eye. With a growl, he reached up and ripped it out, effectively silencing it. Crushing the offending object in his large fist, he cursed himself for forgetting to disable it beforehand. Not only had it interrupted his attention, but he was sure Taker must have heard it as well, which meant he'd be on his way down to put an end to the show shortly.

The flames exploded magnificently when he hurled the broken smoke detector into the flames, bringing a genuine smile to his face. It didn't last long though. As expected, heavy footsteps soon sounded behind him, signaling the arrival of his half-brother.

"Damnit, Kane!" Taker yelled as he ran down the stairs and brushed past him. After wrenching the fire extinguisher off the wall, he quickly put out the fire. Kane watched in silent dismay as his creation was quickly destroyed, and he resisted the urge to cover his ears with his hands to drown out the pitiful hiss of the dying flames. The beautiful flames were nothing more than an ugly smoldering pile of ashes and cloudy smoke.

Letting the extinguisher drop to the cement floor of the basement with a loud clank, Taker slowly turned around to face Kane. "The hell were you thinking?" he asked in a deceptively calm voice.

Kane stared stoically at Taker, specifically at the enlarged vein in the older man's forehead that belied his calm tone of voice.

Taker grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him several times. "What have I told you about starting fires?"

"Never do it inside," Kane recited dutifully in a dull voice, even though he didn't believe in it. However, he'd been in this position many times before -- which was the reason why Taker had installed smoked detectors and fire extinguishers everywhere in the house -- and he knew it was the only way Taker would leave him alone. Taker didn't understand him at all. Didn't he know that fires started outside got corrupted by the elements of nature? Flames were forced to move in the direction of the wind and not allowed to dance freely as they should. In Kane's mind, starting a fire outside was equivalent to purposefully corrupting the greatest performance in the world.

Taker released him and gave one final stare before heading back up the stairs. "One day, I won't be here to stop you and you'll get yourself killed."

"Maybe that isn't such a bad idea," Kane muttered under his breath to himself.

But Taker heard him. He whirled around and stomped back down the steps, gripping Kane's chin with one hand to force him to look at him. "What did you just say?" When Kane just glared at him defiantly, Taker moved his hand from Kane's chin to his throat and squeezed hard. "Only a coward takes his own life, you hear me? Is that what you are, Kane? A weak little coward?"

"No," Kane growled and shoved Taker away from him. Ice blue eyes met emerald green, and the two glared at each other, silently daring the other to make a move. When it was clear that Kane wouldn't back down anytime soon, Taker took it upon himself to end the staredown.

"Clean up the damn mess. I have other, more interesting shall we say, things to do," Taker said shortly before turning on his heel and leaving.

It wasn't until then that it registered in Kane's mind that Taker was shirtless and had spots of blood on his arms and chest. Kane knew for a fact that it wasn't Taker's blood. He must have been in one of his moods again. Kane turned his attention back to the faint wisps emerging from the ashes, struggling in vain to continue their show for him even in death. He went over to crouch down and run one hand through the warm ashes, before getting up to see what Taker was up to. The cleanup could wait until later.

_____________

Taker took a step back to admire his artwork. He pursed his lips, scrutinizing the details of his handiwork as he tossed his knife in the air again and again absentmindedly. Vince had given Kane and him a few weeks of vacation to 'de-stress' as their boss had put it. Of course, Taker was sure Vince probably had some idea as to what the two of them were doing on their off time, but as long as it didn't affect their ring performance, their boss didn't give a damn.

"More time to play," Taker said to himself with a shrug, and brought his attention back to the task at hand. His canvas had long since passed out, though whether from fear or pain he wasn't sure. Although working with a live canvas was always more fun, this one had been a squirmer and had made it extremely difficult to get precise cuts in. And if there was one thing Taker was, it was being a perfectionist.

He had painstakingly carved the outline of every single bone in the man's body with his knife so that the man looked like he was wearing his skeleton on his skin. He had cut just deep enough to leave scars, but not deep enough so as to risk the man dying from blood loss. Satisfied with work, Taker decided to sign it with his symbol as he did with all his artwork. With slow and deliberate flicks of his wrist, he meticulously engraved the cross onto the middle of the man's stomach and was almost finished when a voice interrupted him.

"Huh."

Taker flinched when he heard Kane's voice behind him, sending his knife veering off his intended path and across the man's stomach. He had been so engrossed in getting the carving perfect that he hadn't heard Kane enter the room. "Goddamnit!" He roared, staring at his marred symbol angrily before turning around to glare at Kane. "Look at what you made me do!"

"Why is it okay for you to do this in the house, but not for me to burn things?" Kane griped as he regarded the blood dripping on to the ground, seemingly unfazed by neither the blood nor his brother's outburst.

"Because a little blood isn't gonna burn out the support beams and send the house crumbling to the ground," Taker grumbled, turning back to eye his disfigured signature with a frown. He was more angry at himself for not hearing Kane come in, rather than anything else.

"And hanging a two hundred pound man off one of the beams won't either?" Kane retorted.

There was no answer. Taker was too preoccupied with trying to figure out how to fix the ugly mark on the man's stomach. His brows furrowed together in concentration and he tapped the blade of his knife against his lips. Kane rolled his eyes at his brother's obsessiveness and took out a lighter from his pocket. Before Taker could stop him, he flicked it on and brought the flame to the man's stomach, burning away the wayward cut. The man jolted awake with a scream at the new kind of pain, looking around blearily and panting harshly.

"What did you do that for? Now it's even more uneven," Taker growled, running his thumb over the charred flesh, ignoring the cry from the helpless victim.

"Why do you have to be so anal?" Kane sighed and brought the flame to the man's stomach to make a symmetrical burn mark on the other side. "There."

"What are you doing?" The man wailed.

"Does it feel good?" Ignoring the man's question completely, Kane asked one of his own. He tilted his head to one side, curiosity striking him suddenly. When the man just stared at him with a look that was both incredulous and confused, Kane clarified his question impatiently. "When the fire touches you. Does it feel good?"

"No, it doesn't feel good, you crazy bastard!" The man snapped, momentarily forgetting his pain and the fact that he was completely at the mercy of the two large men in front of him. The absurdity of the question that was just posed to him took him off guard.

Through the curtain of hair covering his face, Kane stared silently at the man for a long moment. He turn on his lighter again and looked back and forth between the small flame and the man several times. He brought his own hand to hover over the flame and felt the warmth of the fire. Finally he came to a conclusion. "You're lying," Kane said bluntly and brought his lighter towards the man, intending to burn him once more.

Taker slapped Kane's arm away. "Stop wrecking my work! Get your own damn canvas."

Kane glared at Taker. "You never let me have any fun."

"You keep eyeballing me like that, and I'll cut out your eyeballs and make you eat them. Let's see how much fun you find in that."

"You two are freaking insane!" The man interrupted their argument. At that, Kane threw back his head, long hair flying back over his broad shoulders, and laughed a laugh that the helpless man could only describe as maniacal.

"Evil. The correct term is evil," Taker corrected him calmly.

"What the hell is wrong with your face?" The man asked stupidly when he finally saw the scars on Kane's face, now that his hair wasn't obscuring it. Kane's smile faded away slowly, and he quickly dipped his head back down to cover his face with his hair. Normally he would've been wearing his mask, but since he and Taker were at home alone, he hadn't seen a need for it -- until now, that is. Kane gritted his teeth and his fist clenched together angrily, shattering the lighter in his hand. Ignoring the stinging pain in his palm, he let the lighter drop to the floor and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The walls rattled so hard that the man could feel the vibrations through his back even from his position at the opposite end of the room.

"Really shouldn't have done that," Taker tsked at the man hanging on the wall. "Didn't your momma ever teach you any manners?"

"Fuck you." The man spat on Taker's chest. He'd come to the conclusion that he was going to die anyways, so it didn't matter what he did or said at this point. Or so he thought.

"You know," Taker began, looking down at the spit on his chest before calmly taking the back of his knife and scraping it off, wiping the blade clean on the man's hair, to his disgust. "I was gonna let you go after I finished. I was really was. I mean--"

"Let me go? You think you'd get away with this?" The man cut him off.

"I'm the motherfuckin' Undertaker. I can do whatever the hell I want," Taker replied coolly, "Anyways, as I saying before you so rudely interrupted me. I _was_ gonna let you go, but since you were so rude to Kane and I, I think I'm gonna let you stay for a little longer."

Taker walked over to the only piece of furniture in the room. He placed his carving knife back in its original position on the table after wiping the blade clean with a wet cloth. Carefully, he decided on two identical larger knives, twirling one in each hand by the handle as he strolled back over to the victim who watched him warily.

"Go ahead, kill me now. I don't care," the man goaded with false bravado. The truth was he wanted to die now to get the pain over with.

"Kill you?" Taker laughed loudly, reminding the man of how Kane had laughed earlier. With an amused sigh, Taker finally calmed down enough to speak. "Killing you would be too nice, and you know what?" Taker leaned in and whispered in his ear, "I'm not a very nice person."

With that, Taker took one knife and stabbed the man's left forearm with it, pinning him to the wall. While the man was still screaming, Taker put his other knife in the man's right forearm, in the exact same position of course. "Right between the bones," Taker said to himself, all the while ignoring the man's annoying cries. He began to uncuff the man's wrists so he would hang solely from the knives embedded in his forearms, when it suddenly occurred to Taker that the knives probably wouldn't hold under the man's weight. He went back over to the table and retrieved two more large knives and put one through each of the man's legs without hesitation. This brought on even louder cries pain from the injured man.

"Don't worry. I didn't hit any major arteries so you won't die anytime soon. I'll see you in a couple of days," Taker announced. As he exited the room, he turned around to take one last look at the man. Taker was immensely proud of himself. How many people could say that they had a live skeleton hanging on one of their walls? With the faintest of smiles on his lips, Taker shut the door, silencing the screams of his vacation project.


	2. Chapter 2

Taker went up to his room with the intention of grabbing a quick shower to clean himself off. He paused just outside the doorway when he found Kane standing in his bathroom. If Kane noticed him there, he ignored him, continuing to stare at the spiderweb of cracks in the mirror over the sink.

Kane had gone to retrieve some lighter fluid to burn something with, when the words of Taker's victim kept repeating themselves in his mind over and over. _What the hell is wrong with your face? _He'd heard those very words many years ago and they were the reason he wore his mask. While he was hidden behind his mask, nobody could see him or the monster that he was. He took away people's ability to ridicule him, for they could see nothing. He was the one in control this way, and he would not let them have the upper hand by letting them see his face.

At home, Kane didn't wear his mask because Taker was the only one who would see his face, and Taker never mentioned his scars, never recoiled in disgust as Kane knew other people would do if they saw his face. Prompted by the victim's question, Kane had a sudden urge to see what others saw but there was no mirror in his room, by his choice of course. So he'd gone to Taker's bathroom where he knew there was a mirror. As soon as he stood in front of the mirror and hesitantly moved his hair out of the way, he wished he hadn't.

He'd grown angry at the mirror for mocking him, mocking his scars. So, he'd punched it, but instead of feeling better, it made him angrier. The mirror had only cracked, and now the fragments showed him a distorted reflection, making his scars look more harsh and jagged. He could hear the mirror laughing at him. _What the hell is wrong with your face? _The longer he stared, the more it laughed at him. He gripped the edges of the sink until his knuckles turned white and the tiny pieces of broken glass from the lighter he'd shattered dug themselves deeper into his palm.

"Mirrors work better when they ain't broken," Taker commented, breaking the silence.

"There's nothing to see," Kane whispered before he put his fist into the mirror again, sending the pieces smashing into the sink.

"There's nothing to see because there's nothing wrong with your face, Kane."

"I have scars," Kane growled, continuing to stare at the glass shards in the sink, refusing to meet Taker's eyes. Taker placed a hand on Kane's shoulder to turn him around, but Kane shrugged it off, pushing past Taker in the doorway to leave.

"You can barely see them!" Taker yelled, but the only answer he received was the sound of a door slamming. Kane had already left, leaving Taker to deal with the mess in his sink and the bloody palm print on the side of the counter.

Before Taker could decide what to do, his phone began to ring. He went back into his room and picked up his cell phone. Glancing at the caller display, he rolled his eyes before connecting the call. "What?"

Taker sat down on the edge of bed and scraped at the specks of blood on his arms with his fingernail, and listened with half attention to the caller ramble on and on excitedly as he often did. Taker paused his ministrations on his arm when the caller mentioned something that captured his full attention.

"I have just the thing for you. Come by later today," Taker instructed his caller before hanging up and heading back into his bathroom to shower.

_________

The first thing Kane did when he got to his room was grab his mask and yank it on. The feel of the cool leather against his face instantly calmed him even if it was just a tiny bit. It was his safety blanket of sorts, not that he'd ever admit it to anyone.

After grabbing a bottle of lighter fluid and one of the many lighters in his nightstand, he headed outside into the forest behind the house. He wanted to get away from Taker, not only because Taker would yell at him for starting another fire in the house, but because he didn't want to hear Taker lie to him anymore. Did Taker really think he'd fall for it? Believe that there was nothing wrong with his face? It was a lie and he knew it.

Making his way into the clearing in the forest, Kane wasted no time in twisting open the bottle of lighter fluid and splashing it all over the pile of random junk he had accumulated over the years. Burning this was much more fun than burning wood. You never knew when the fire would come in contact with an object that would make it crackle or explode.

Picking up an old book from the heap, Kane pulled out his lighter to light it on fire. After attempting several times without success to get a flame to appear, he brought the offending item up to eye level to inspect it. It was empty. Cursing his luck, he hurled it to the ground with an angry growl and nearly jumped out of his skin when a flame erupted on the book in his hand and began to burn.

Kane stared at a burning book for a moment before whirling around in a circle, expecting there to be someone else near him who had caused the fire. He walked along at the edge of the circular clearing and squinted through the trees, still holding the burning book in his hand. There was nobody else here with him. Returning to the pile of junk in the middle of the clearing, he was about to throw the flaming book onto the pile when he suddenly had the urge to know what the book was about. The front of the book was already unreadable due to the flames, so he turned the book over. He read the only legible sentence on the back cover to himself. _Today is the first day of the rest of your life._

Kane frowned underneath his mask. What was that supposed to mean? When the flames came too close to his fingers, he finally tossed the book onto the heap. Moving over to a large fallen log, he quickly scanned the surrounding once more for the sign of another person with him. Finding nobody, he sat down and leaned forward to watch the spreading fire while idly picking at the glass shards in his palm and wondering how the book had caught afire.

________

Kane had just stepped back into the house through the back door when the sound of the doorbell ringing from the front door reached his ears.

"Get the door!" He heard Taker yell from upstairs. Kane looked up at the stairwell towards the direction where Taker's voice was coming from. Since when did Taker ever have guests over?

Kane made his way to the front door and looked in the peep hole, only to see a giant eyeball staring back at him, filling up the entire field of vision. Thoroughly confused, Kane jerked open the door to find Mideon standing there with his pet eyeball in hand. Both of the Acolytes were standing behind him.

"Hi Kane!" Mideon greeted him enthusiastically. Kane didn't return his greeting. Completely unfazed by Kane's lack of response, Mideon continued on, "Taker said he had something for me."

"It's in the back room," Taker said as he came down the stairs, towelling his wet hair along the way down. Draping the towel over the railing at the bottom, he motioned for them to follow him.

"Can you watch Iris for me?" Mideon could barely contain his excitement, although Kane had no idea as to why, as he shoved the jar containing his pet eyeball into Kane's hands and hurried to catch up to Taker. Bradshaw and Farooq each nodded a silent greeting to Kane as they filed past him. Curious as to what was going on, Kane trailed behind them to see what the three of them were doing here. He held the jar with the eyeball--Iris--awkwardly in one hand because he wasn't sure what to do with it. When Kane realized which room they were headed to, he could feel his anger starting to rise again.

"Cool!" Kane heard Mideon yell. Kane watched from outside the room as Mideon gawked at the man on the wall who was now staring at Mideon like he had two heads.

The man turned to Taker and glared at him. "Lemme guess. Now you gonna sacrifice to your fucking evil god or whatever?"

Taker scoffed. "What the hell would any higher being want anything to do with a piece of shit like you? Mideon needs a new play toy and, well, you're it."

"I've been meaning to get Iris a new friend," Mideon announced as he pulled each of the man's eyelids all the way up to examine each eyeball. "She gets lonely sometimes, ya know?"

"Who's Iris?" The man asked warily, drawing snickers from everyone in the room. Even Kane's lips twitched upwards under his mask for a split second. The man had no idea what was coming to him.

"Get him out of my house," Taker ordered and gestured for the Acolytes to remove the man from the wall. Sporting identical evil grins, Bradshaw and Farooq approached the man and yanked out the knives in the man's legs and arms without a second thought, letting him scream in agony as he crumpled to the floor. They hauled him up by his shoulders and proceeded to drag him out of the room.

Gasping in pain, the man attempted in vain to wriggle free. When it was clear he wouldn't be able to escape the iron grip of the two men, he decided to change tactics and turned to Taker. "Please," he begged, "I--I have a wife... And a daughter! She's five! Don't do this to me--to them!"

Taker glanced down at the man's hands, noting the lack of a wedding band. Taker had kidnapped the man as the man was leaving a strip joint, and didn't believe for one second that the man was telling the truth right now. Taker crossed his arm across his chest. "A wife, huh? And a four-year old daughter?"

"Yes!"

"You just said she was five."

"She--I have two daughters!" The man lied again, desperately trying to grasp onto what might be his only chance to live.

Taker began to grow bored of the game the man was trying to play, and turned to leave. "Out," he commanded, waving his hand dismissively over his shoulder as he left.

Kane moved off to the side a little to let them through the doorway. Mideon was the last one out, carefully taking Iris back from Kane. "Thanks for watching her. Hey, you wanna come too?"

Kane shook his head. As much as he wanted to see the man suffer, he wasn't too keen on having to interact with anyone. He preferred to be alone, away from the prying eyes of other people, and Mideon definitely seemed like the prying type.

"Oh, come on," Mideon coaxed, "I'll let you burn the body."

Kane tilted his head to the side, contemplating this new piece of information. Mideon took this as an affirmative answer and grabbed Kane's arm, pulling the larger man with him. Kane anchored himself to the floor for a moment so that Mideon couldn't go anywhere, just to show Mideon that he couldn't just manhandle him around anytime he wanted. When Mideon turned around with a questioning look, Kane extracted his arm from his grip but followed Mideon silently, watching as Mideon jabbered excitedly all the way to the car.

"This is gonna be so much fun!"


	3. Chapter 3

_I still don't really know where this story is going. I guess it's going to end up wherever Kane wants it to end up lol  
This chapter contains a sexual assault on a minor. Skip the part in __italics if it disturbs you (I know it was disturbing enough to write)__.  
_

* * *

Kane often heard people say that he wasn't playing with all fifty-two cards, so to speak. He attributed it to the fact that he didn't speak much, and he had the tendency to fly off the handle. It didn't bother him too much that people thought he was crazy. They left him alone that way. As he watched Mideon circle the gagged man on the floor, Kane was becoming more and more convinced that Mideon was the one really not playing with a full deck. In fact, he probably wasn't even playing with a single suit.

Mideon had drawn Taker's symbol onto the ground in purple chalk, large enough for the man to fit on it. He then positioned the man on top of it, securing him to the ground using layers upon layers of duct tape on his neck, wrists and ankles. From Kane's point of view, the layers of duct tape looked to be about an inch thick. Mideon had then painted the duct tape black to make it more aesthetically pleasing, humming Taker's entrance music to himself and seemingly completely oblivious to the death glares he was receiving and the muffled noises the man was making from behind his gag.

Kane watched as Mideon disappeared into a dark corner and reappeared wearing a dark hooded cloak that looked suspiciously familiar. Kane hoped Mideon hadn't stolen it from Taker, or there'd be hell to pay. On second thought, that would probably be rather entertaining to witness. Taker wouldn't kill him for it, of course. Mideon was his favourite minion, always following Taker's instructions without hesitation or any questions asked, like a good little puppy.

"You're the sacrifice. Have you ever been a sacrifice before?" Mideon asked as he kneeled down near the man's head, regarding him patiently as if he expected the gagged man to be able to answer his absurd question. When he didn't receive an answer, he shrugged and got up, moving away to retrieve a book from the table by the wall. He paused to bend down to look at Iris sitting on the table, whispering to her something Kane couldn't hear. Flipping open the book to a bookmarked page, Mideon quickly scanned through the page before setting it down and opening a canister on the table.

"Here, sprinkle this on him," Mideon said as he took Kane's palm and filled it with different kinds of herbs. Kane stared at it for a moment, trying to decide whether or not he wanted to be involved with this. The only reason he was here was because he wanted to know what it was like to set a person on fire. Granted, he'd probably be burning a dead body by the time Mideon got through with him, but he was still curious. Deciding that the sooner Mideon was done, the sooner he got to play, Kane walked over and dumped the entire handful of herbs on the man's face much to his chagrin. Mideon was too busy looking at the book to notice what Kane was doing.

"Now do the same with this." He handed Kane a bottle of oil. Kane twisted the cap open and emptied the entire bottle onto the man's face. The man growled and made some angry noises behind his gag, blinking repeatedly in an attempt to clear his eyes. Mideon shushed him absentmindedly as he thumbed through the book.

"Aha!" Mideon exclaimed as he located the correct page. "Now we wait for a few minutes."

First herbs, then oil, and now marination. If Kane didn't know any better, he'd say that Mideon was reading from a cookbook. He watched silently as Mideon chatted animatedly with Iris in hushed tones as they waited, although Kane had no idea what they were waiting for.

"Okay time's up. Now I have to cast a spell." Mideon announced and pulled out a sheet of note paper and began to read off of it. It sounded like a chant in a language Kane didn't understand. In fact, it sounded like complete gibberish. As far as Kane could make out, there were no repetitions of groups of words like when Taker made a sacrifice, but rather an endless stream of nonsensical noises. When he discreetly glanced over at Mideon's note paper--wearing a mask had its advantages sometimes--he saw that it was handwritten. Kane hoped Mideon hadn't written himself. He hoped even more that Mideon didn't accidentally summon a plague or a swarm of locusts upon them.

"Now I have to cut him. It doesn't say where though. Hmmm. I guess I can get right down to business," Mideon concluded after he finished his incantation. He grabbed a knife off the table and approached the man. Mideon studied the man's eyes for a moment. He finally decided and pointed his blade at the left eye and declared, "I shall name you Corona."

Kane smiled slightly under his mask when he heard the man's muffled screams at the first few cuts Mideon made. After that, he was silent, either because he passed out or died. Kane wasn't sure until a chunk of grey matter came out with eyeball when Mideon scooped it out.

"Eww." Mideon pinched the brain matter with his thumb and forefinger, detaching it and flinging it away. Kane didn't understand how Mideon could be holding a freshly cut human eyeball with no difficulty but be grossed out by human brain matter, but then again Kane didn't understand a lot of things about Mideon.

"He's all yours. There's matches on the table and gasoline in the corner," Mideon told Kane as he happily went to work on cleaning the eyeball in the sink and setting up a jar to put it in.

Kane wasted no time in locating the gasoline and pouring a generous amount over the body. He lit a match and dropped it on the man's feet, watching in fascination as the flame spread up the entire body. As much as he was enjoying this, Kane couldn't help but wonder what it'd be like to burn someone alive. He knew exactly who'd he'd like to try it on too. Just thinking about that fat asshole made his blood boil.

The flames suddenly erupted into a full out fire.

"Whoa!" Mideon yelled from his place at the sink. Other than being a little surprised that the flames had exploded, Kane on the other hand, didn't seemed bothered in the slightest that the fire was burning dangerously close to him.

"Um, you mind if I put out the fire?" Mideon hesitantly asked Kane. Grabbing one of the many jars off the shelf, he filled it with water, and waited for the go-ahead from Kane before going over and dumping it on to the fire. The two of them watched the flames sizzle and die down until Mideon broke the silence. "Well, that was fun! We should do this again sometime," Mideon said brightly.

______________

_"That's right, take it all in."_

_Kane gagged as the portly man squeezed his mouth open and forced his cock deeper down his throat. Kane whimpered and tried to pull away, but the man began to thrust, the force of it causing Kane's head to bang back against the wall over and over. Stars were starting to dance in his vision and he began to wish he'd pass out so he didn't have to be conscious for this._

_"Suck me, you ugly little bitch of a kid!"_

_Kane couldn't even breathe let alone even try to do what the man was asking in order to get this over with faster. He struggled again, but his small frame was no match for the large man standing over him. He began to gasp for what little air he could get around the cock in his mouth._

_"Oh yesss!"_

_Kane squeezed his eyes shut to try and shut out the situation. He wished he wasn't here. Anywhere but here. He'd even take being inside the house as it burned and crumbled around him as he tried to escape. Inhaling smoke that burned its way into his lungs and stung his eyes was better than this. Anything was better than this._

_"Look at me!" The man slapped Kane in the face so hard that he fell over onto the ground, immediately curling into himself, gasping for air. "Look at me, you little bastard!"_

_"Kane?" A new voice this time, completely different from the high pitched shrill of the fat man. Kane kept his eyes squeezed shut and curled up into a tighter ball. He felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. Kane shook his head even as he kept his eyes closed. He didn't want to see anymore. He wanted this to end._

_______  
_

"Wake the hell up, Kane," Taker said, shaking Kane's shoulders with both hands this time, trying to wake him up from whatever nightmare he was having. Taker had already been asleep when Kane got back from Mideon's place and hadn't heard him come in the house, but he sure as hell had heard the strangled noises that were coming from Kane's room halfway through the night and came over to investigate.

Kane had gotten himself entangled in the bedsheets and was sweating profusely. Although part of that may have been because of the fact that Kane always hid his scars, wearing pants and long sleeve shirts to sleep no matter how hot it was. Taker called his name again. Kane suddenly shot up in bed, eyes glazed over and gasping for breath.

"It was just a dream." Taker tried to calm him down, but Kane continued to stare blankly in front of him so Taker took him by the shoulders and forced Kane to face him. He took Kane's chin and tilted his head upwards. "Look at me."

_"Look at me, you little bastard."_

"No," Kane whispered, still not completely awake yet. "No!" He screamed and shoved Taker away from him with such force that it sent Taker flying backwards into the wall. He smashed headfirst into it with a sickening crunch before sliding down and crumpling into a heap on the floor.

Kane shook his head several times, and stared down Taker lying motionless on the floor in the dark room. Not believing that he had been able to such a thing, he looked down at his own hands, only to find that they were on fire. Orange-red flames enveloped his hands, making them warm and tingly, and illuminating the area around them. Kane blinked hard and then his hands were normal again with no evidence of the fire at all.

With his breathing quickened, he quickly scrambled to turn on the bedside lamp. The light allowed him to see that his hands were indeed fine. He turned his attention to the wall that Taker had crashed into. He was sure that his heart stopped beating when he saw the scene in front of him. There a head-sized dent in the plaster with a trail of blood smearing all the way down the wall. Time seemed to go in slow motion as Kane followed the bloody trail with his eyes until it disappeared behind Taker's head on the ground. He gaped at it, unable to move or tear his eyes away until something else caught his attention. On Taker's bare chest were two vaguely hand-shaped burn marks, still smoldering like a spent fire.


	4. Chapter 4

Up until now, there was only one time in his entire life that Kane had had a moment of true panic. The first time was when he was trapped inside his family's burning home as a child. The heat had been unbearable, making his heart pound in his chest. The smoke had been thick, making it difficult to breathe. His attempts at escape seemed futile and it felt like he was going around in circles, unable to recognize the layout of his own house through the smoke and crumbling. He was sure he was going to die right then and there.

Right now, there was no fire surrounding him and no thick smoke invading his lungs, and yet his heart was beating just as hard and he found it just as hard to breathe. He wasn't sure how long he'd sat on the edge of the bed frozen like a deer caught in headlights, staring at Taker's unmoving form. Then, as if suddenly struck by emergency of the situation, he hastily roused himself from the bed, nearly tripping and falling face-first onto the floor when the bedsheets that were entangled around his legs impeded his movements.

"Taker?" He called out the name slowly, his voice coming out as a whispered rasp, as he stumbled the few steps over. There was no answer, no sign of movement to indicate that Taker had heard him. Kane crouched down and gingerly reached out to touch the burn marks on Taker's chest, snatching his hand back quickly with a hiss at the intense heat that still lingered there.

He dashed into the bathroom to grab some bath towels, soaking one thoroughly with ice cold water. Returning back into the room, he laid the wet towel over the burns on Taker's chest, and carefully lifted his head to place a folded towel underneath to stop the bleeding. Kane then righted himself and stood there, again unsure of what to do. Should he try to rouse Taker again? Should he call for help? Should he run for the hills? Indecision weighed down on him like a thousand cinderblocks, rendering him motionless for several minutes.

Finally, Kane reached down and shook Taker gently by the shoulder. No response. He went over to the phone, intending to call for an ambulance. He had just dialed nine and was about to dial the next two digits that would connect the call when a thought struck him. How would he explain the burn marks? If he told them that his hands had miraculously ignited into a fire of their own accord while he shoved his brother away, they'd think he was crazy. They might even have him locked up in a asylum for uttering such nonsense.

And what if Taker died? Would he be accused of murder? There was nobody else around for miles, as Taker like the privacy of living in a secluded area. Kane was the only other person around who could have done it. Oh god, what if Taker died? What if he'd just killed his half-brother? Taker was the only real family he had left. If Taker died, he'd be all alone, isolated just like when Bearer kept him locked in that tiny, frigid cold room in the basement when he used to live with him. Just thinking about it made Kane shiver. That bastard Bearer. This was all his fault. Kane wasn't sure exactly why it was Bearer's fault but it was a lot easier to blame him than blame himself.

He let the phone drop onto the nightstand with a clatter and threaded his hands in his hair. Clenching his fists hard and ignoring the subsequent pain in his scalp, he squeezed his eyes shut with a growl and willed his thoughts to stop racing inside his mind. He couldn't think straight anymore. He went back over to Taker and shook him by the shoulders again, desperately willing him to awaken. "Get up!"

Again, no response. Kane raised Taker's eyelids with his thumbs to find that his eyes were rolled back into his head. Eyes. Maybe he should call Mideon. It wasn't until he got back over to the phone, that he realized he didn't know Mideon's phone number. With an aggravated yell, he began to hurry over to Taker's room to retrieve it when Taker groaned.

"Taker?" Kane immediately fell to his knees in front of him, helping Taker prop himself up into a sitting position against the wall.

"Fuckin' hell," Taker wheezed and brought a hand to rub the back of his head in an attempt to stop the throbbing pain. His head felt like he had just taken a hundred chairshots in rapid succession, and his chest didn't feel any better. He grabbed the wet towel away from his chest and stared in confusion at the burnt mess that was his skin. "'The fuck?"

"Are you--I don't--Fire." The words tumbled out of Kane's mouth haltingly and in a garbled mess, but Taker got the gist of what Kane was trying to convey.

"You burned me." It wasn't a question but a statement.

"I didn't mean to," Kane said quietly, slightly confused by Taker's calm demeanor. There was no anger or hurt in his expression. In fact, he seemed almost nonchalant about the whole situation. Kane reached out a hand hesitantly to touch Taker's chest, barely grazing the charred flesh before letting his hand fall into his lap. Unable to look Taker in the eye, he kept his eyes locked onto Taker's chest instead and remained silent. He was never one to talk much in the first place--Bearer had made sure to tell him time and time again that nobody wanted to hear him speak--but at this moment he was truly at a loss for words.

He kept staring for several minutes until something happened that made him think his eyes were playing tricks on him. The flesh on Taker's chest was _moving_. Kane's eyes flew to Taker's only to find that they were rolled back into his head, displaying only the white parts. Kane looked back down to see that the burns were slowly disappearing before his very eyes until not a single mark remained. He lifted one hand and then the other to brush over the skin, utterly confused by what had just occurred. Taker's chest was smooth and completely devoid of any evidence of what had been there just a few minutes ago. Kane glanced upwards at Taker's face and saw that his eyes had returned to normal and he was now regarding Kane with an amused look.


	5. Chapter 5

"How did you..." Kane trailed off, running his hands over Taker's unburned chest again in disbelief.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to come on to me," Taker teased, glancing down at Kane's hands.

"Huh?" Kane followed Taker's gaze to where his palms were resting on Taker's chest. "Oh." He pulled his hands back quickly but they stayed frozen in midair, momentarily unsure of what to do with them. He regarded Taker silently, replaying the events in his mind over and over again. His hands had caught on fire somehow when he shoved Taker because he had been angry, although the reason why was still a little unclear to him at the moment. Then the burn marks on Taker's chest had miraculously disappeared. "How?"

Even through Kane's curtain of hair, Taker could see the confusion etched all over his face. Deciding it was easier to show Kane than try to explain in words, Taker took his hand and clawed it down his own chest hard enough for the blunt nails to draw blood. He grimaced, simultaneously relishing and wincing at the pain. When Kane opened his mouth to speak, Taker silenced him with his other hand and began the process of healing the fresh wounds on his chest.

Kane watched intently with an unblinking gaze, lest he missed seeing anything, as Taker rolled his eyes back into his head and the bloody rivers on his chest began to dry up, close and finally disappear as if they were never there. "You can heal," Kane whispered when realization finally dawned on him.

"Among other things," Taker answered with a slight smirk.

Kane opened and closed his mouth several times, unable to get any words out as a million thoughts whizzed past in his head, before blurting out the first coherent thought that passed through his mind. "You cheat during matches."

Kane's accusation was met by a chuckle from Taker that quickly turned into a deep laugh. He had pictured many reactions Kane would have when he found out the truth but this certainly wasn't one of them. "I don't need to cheat to win," he said seriously, "Have you ever seen me heal during a match?"

"No," Kane admitted slowly, but he was still giving Taker a skeptical look.

"Mom was a sorceress," Taker said suddenly, cutting off whatever other comments Kane was about to make.

"What?" The already swirling thoughts in Kane's head began to spin faster and faster until he was sure they would just whirl right out of his head and fly off into space. Part of him wanted that to actually happen. It would mean his head would be clear and he wouldn't have to think about all this. Having so many pieces of incredulous information thrown at him at once was making his head hurt. "What do you mean?"

"You know, magic?" Taker held out his palm face up, forming a ball of blue light and tossing it up towards the ceiling. When it hit the ceiling it came back down as a small lightning bolt and hit Kane in the forehead. Kane hissed when the mild zap hit him and glared at Taker for his efforts. He rubbed at the slight sting absentmindedly as he tried to come to terms with what had just been revealed to him. His mother was a sorceress.

The few memories that he had of his mother were somewhat hazy; he had been but seven when the fire had happened. He remembered that she had been quite a tall woman with strawberry blonde hair. He remembered that she would tell Taker and him a different story every night before they went to bed. He vaguely remembered wondering, even at his young age, how she could possibly know so many stories. But the one thing that he remembered the most clearly was that she always wore long flowing dresses that made her look like was gliding across the floor when she walked. And now, from what Taker had just told him, he had reason to believe that she may very well have gliding across the floor instead of walking.

Magic; the sort of thing only heard in stories and seen on television and yet here he was, having just watched his brother heal away severe wounds at a miraculous pace, in addition to having electricity being thrown at his forehead.

"So is that what I can do?" Kane asked, holding up his own hands, staring intently at them as if something spectacular would happen at any moment.

"Yeah, I guess it took you longer to find out because you're half human."

Kane's jaw clenched automatically and his hands balled into fists in anger as he thought about what a sorry excuse of a human being his biological father was. It grated on his nerves to know that he was actually related to that asshole who had manipulated him into believing Taker was the one to blame for the fire, turning him against his own brother. He couldn't stop the growl that escaped his throat nor the flames that suddenly erupted around his fists.

"Whoa! I know I can heal but that shit fuckin' hurts," Taker said as he grabbed Kane by the forearms and directed the flaming hands away from himself. "Doesn't hurt you though, does it?"

"No." Kane blinked as he realized that the fire indeed didn't cause him any pain at all. He stared down the orange-red flames engulfing his fists, enveloping him in a warm embrace. What he'd longed to feel for so long on his skin was finally possible without the painful side effects. "Feels nice."

"Mom used to burn you in the fireplace at night when you were a baby. I didn't know it at the time--I thought she was trying to kill you," Taker laughed, "But she was burning away your human parts. To make you stronger." When Kane didn't answer him because he was too engrossed by the flames on his hands, Taker added, "Probably why you're so obsessed with fire too, ya freak."

Kane spared Taker a glance and cracked a small smile before returning. "Freaks are cool."

"Yeah well Bearer doesn't think freaks are cool," Taker said bitterly.

Kane's eyes flew to Taker's. "He knew?"

"Come," Taker instructed, getting up off the floor and motioning for Kane to do the same and follow him into the spare bathroom down the hall. He plugged the sink and twisted the cold water knob until it was on full blast, quickly filling the sink with ice cold water. Shutting off the faucet with one hand, he took Kane by the elbow with the other to guide him over to stand in front of the sink. He then shove both of Kane's hands into the water, listening to the hiss the fire made when it hit the water and the hiss Kane made at the sudden change in temperature. He held Kane's hands underwater while he looked at his younger brother's reflection in the mirror. "You told me Bearer kept you locked in a cold room?"

Kane nodded without looking in the mirror, continuing to stare at his hands submerged in the icy depths. He hated the cold. It made him feel sluggish and weak as if it were like a boa constrictor coiling around him, binding him and rendering him helpless.

"Try to start up the flames again," Taker said as he removed Kane's hands from the water. "Can't do it, can you?"

Kane scowled as he tried to make his freezing cold hands do just that. He thought about everything and anything that had ever made him angry and yet nothing happened. It was as if his body had shut down, refusing to start like a car on a frigid cold morning in the dead of winter.

"He kept you in the cold to control you," Taker explained.

Kane remained silent as he mentally relived everything that Bearer had put him through. Revenge was constantly running through his mind and now he had another reason to make Bearer suffer. To know that what he was put through was because of the fact that he was different from other people set something off in him. He hadn't really thought about those years of his life much, save for the occasional nightmare. Once Taker had broken the control Bearer had over him, Bearer had hightailed it out of there as fast as his fat ass could take him and Kane had tried to push the events out of his mind as much he could. But now every time Bearer had forced himself on him was repeating itself in his head like a broken record of nightmares that refused to stop playing.

Taker watched Kane stare blankly at the spot under the mirror. It was clear that Kane was off in his own little world, and twitch under his eye and the tension in his jaw told Taker that it was anything but a pleasant memory Kane was having. "Wanna tell me what you're thinking about?" Taker asked and his eyes immediately narrowed when Kane visibly flinched.

"No," Kane replied curtly before turning to leave.

However, Taker was expecting him to do that and moved to block the doorway. "I think you've been skirting around this long enough, Kane. Tell me what he did to you."


	6. Chapter 6

Kane stared intently at the tiles of the bathroom floor, unable to bring himself to meet the eyes of his brother. Silence filled the small area and it had never sounded so loud to Kane's ears before. Taker had managed to get him to reveal his past with Bearer and now Kane didn't dare look up to see the disgust he was sure would be on Taker's face. A loud exhale broke the silence and the suddenness of it caused Kane's eyes to automatically flick to the source of the sound.

"We are going to find Bearer," Taker ground out through clenched teeth. The enlarged vein on his forehead pulsed furiously and his entire body shook, barely able to keep his anger in check as he stormed out of the bathroom and down the hall. "Fucker is going to die!"

Just then, a loud clap of thunder boomed outside, rattling both Kane's nerves and the windows of the house. As far as he could recall, it wasn't raining at all earlier in the night, and he was absolutely certain that there wasn't a thunderstorm going on. Slowly, Kane stepped into the hallway just in time to see a flash of lightning illuminate Taker's tall form at the other end of the dark hallway as he turned into his room, followed by another clap of thunder just as Taker slammed his door shut.

Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, Kane made his way over to his own room to look out his window. It was indeed raining outside; in fact it was pouring down like the dark purple clouds above had some kind of personal vendetta against the ground below. Kane could just barely see the sun starting to rise in the distant horizon but it appeared to be no match for the angry clouds overhead. Kane was almost hypnotized by the way the raindrops pelted down like bullets and the mud splattered like bloody wounds on the red dirt path that led to his clearing in the forest.

"Fuck!" Taker's muffled curse echoed down the hallway. Kane cocked his head to the side as lightning flashed and another thundering boom sounded outside. Either mother nature was playing mind games with him, or Taker's powers were so great that he could control even the weather. As much as Kane hated to admit it, the latter thought did make him a little wary. He was sure that at least part of Taker's anger was directed at him for letting himself be overpowered. For letting himself be controlled. For being so _weak_.

* * *

"You know where Bearer is?" Kane asked, turning his head to look at Taker in the driver's seat. Taker clearly had not bothered to shield himself from the heavy rain when he went out to get the truck. Strands of his black hair clung to the sides of his face and water dripped onto his trench coat.

"No," Taker answered curtly, eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead of him, seemingly oblivious to the rainwater trickling down his forehead and into his eyes.

"Then where are we going?"

"To find Bearer," Taker growled and set the windshield wiper on the highest setting, nearly snapping the handle clean off with the force he used.

Kane sighed and decided not to press the issue any further when he saw the white knuckled grip Taker had on the steering wheel. He turned to look out the passenger side window at the rain that was pelting down on them. Resting his forehead against the glass, he almost wished he wasn't wearing his mask so he could feel the coolness against his skin. The rhythmic patter of the raindrops on the roof of the truck was oddly soothing as he stared at the passing scenery--what he could make out through the heavy rain anyway. Soon the vehicle sped up and everything outside was a blur. Kane felt his eyes grow tired at trying to pick out exactly what was flying past them and he closed them.

Kane's eyes snapped open as the truck lurched to a stop. The first thing he noticed was the large dark mansion in front of them. The second thing he noticed was that it had stopped raining although the sky was still gloomy. He was sure that he had only closed his eyes for a few seconds, and he wondered how their surroundings had changed so quickly. Before he could ask where they were, Taker had already exited the vehicle and was stomping his way towards the front door of the mansion.

Kane got out of the truck and surveyed his surroundings. The house was situated on a hill and seemed to be the only building around for miles in the surrounding forest. Kane watched as what he thought was a flock of birds flew out from the trees below, but as they got nearer he could see that were not birds at all. They were bats--big, hairy, ugly, black bats that were flying straight at him. He ducked quickly as they swooped past his head and and straightened himself in time to stare incredulously as the beasts disappeared behind the roof of the house.

He turned to look if Taker had seen what had happened but his older brother was too busy staring at the door impatiently. Kane made his way over slowly, looking over his shoulder to make sure there were no more bats coming to attack him. Just as he stopped to stand behind Taker, the door swung open to reveal a young man in a dark gray suit.

"Good evening," he welcomed them politely as if having two giant men show up at the door was a normal occurrence. Kane couldn't help but notice how pale the man was--even paler than Taker if that were possible. His eyes were red-rimmed almost as if he had been crying, but something told Kane that that wasn't the case at all with this stoic-looking man. Kane frowned under his mask, not only because of the strange appearance of the man but at what he had said. It was just barely daybreak, as far from evening as one could possibly get, but Taker spoke before Kane could dwell on that matter any more.

"Where the fuck is your master?"

Kane found himself staring at the back of Taker's head suspiciously. Taker sounded as if he'd been here before or otherwise knew whoever lived at this place. Kane knew that he himself had never been here before--he didn't even know where here was exactly or how they got here--nor did he have any idea who resided here. Questions began to pop into Kane's mind and not all of them had favourable answers. Was Bearer here? Did whoever lived here know Bearer? Were they allied with Bearer or with Taker? For that matter, whose side was Taker on? Why was Taker being so secretive? What if--

"I'm afraid he is busy at the moment," the gentleman answered in the same polite tone.

"Now you listen here, boy," Taker said as stepped into the doorway and leaned over the shorter man menacingly, "I asked you where he is and you are going to tell me where he is or I will go and find him myself."

"He wishes not to be disturbed--"

"Are you dumb or what?" Taker yelled as he grasped the man by neck and lifted him clean off the floor. "One last chance," he warned, giving a hard squeeze to his neck to get his point across before setting him down. The young man huffed huffed indignantly as he straightened out his clothes and cracked his neck, turning abruptly and began heading down a hallway. He seemed more annoyed at Taker than scared, and Kane wasn't sure whether it was more a brave or stupid reaction.

As the two of them followed the strange man down the hall, Kane took in the decor of the mansion. It wasn't something he would normally care to notice but it was quite difficult to do with this particular residence. Everything--the walls, the ceiling, the doors, the carpet--was a deep red. Not that Kane had anything against the colour red but this made it look like the entire house was bleeding, and it made him wonder who would live in such an odd house. He found himself trailing further and further behind Taker as he wondered just exactly where they were headed.


End file.
